UC Browser allegedly leaks data of Indian users, may face ban if found guilty

A new case of data leak has come into light where Alibaba’s UC Browser allegedly leaked mobile data of its Indian users. The Indian government is reviewing the allegation against the Chinese company and may ban the browser in the country if found guilty, according to media reports.

“There have been complaints against UC Browser that it sends mobile data of its users in India to server in China. There are complaints that even if an user has uninstalled it or cleaned browsing data, the browser retains control of DNS of user’s device,” the officer who did not wish to be named told PTI.

According to the officer, the allegations against the browser are established then it may be banned in the country.

The case has been reported at a time when the government has already expressed its concern towards data security.

UC Browser has last year claimed that it has over 100 million monthly active users in India and Indonesia.

As per Stat-Counter report at the end of June 2017, UC Browser is the second most used web browser in India after Google’s Chrome and leads mobile phone segment with 48.66 per cent market share.

Besides, the Ministry of Electronics and IT is actively looking at findings of University of Toronto which has allegedly discovered “several major privacy and security vulnerabilities that would seriously expose users of UC Browser to surveillance and other privacy violations”.

Last week, official in the Electronics and IT ministry hinted that in an attempt to ensure the protection of user data, the government may ask foreign handset makers to set up servers in India, especially as most Chinese smartphone vendors have servers in their home country, according to an Economic Times report.

“There have been voices raised for the past several years that by virtue of servers being outside of India… data processing has become the new field (of commercial exploitation),” said an official talking to ET.